


The Nine Circles of Panem

by for_t2



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Blood, Caring, Drug Addiction, F/F, Healing, Hell, Hopeful Ending, Inferno (La Divina Commedia | The Divine Comedy - Dante Alighieri), Love, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Post-War, Recovery, Survival, hydrophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-19
Updated: 2020-07-19
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:02:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25390555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/for_t2/pseuds/for_t2
Summary: No one can climb back from the deepest depths of hell alone. Even if they don't make it, no one can even try alone. Not even Katniss
Relationships: Katniss Everdeen/Johanna Mason
Kudos: 20





	The Nine Circles of Panem

**The Centre**

The first warning sign should’ve been the Peacekeepers thinning through the crowd massed in front of President Snow’s enormous mansion. The second should’ve been the children wailing as they were separated from their parents, as they were pulled towards the tall iron gates. The third should’ve been the whirr of the hovercraft passing above, all marked with the same ornate Capitol shield.

All those warnings, and all Katniss could do was stop and stare as the packets floated down from the smoke-filled sky, just as they had once floated down for her, for the benefit of the games. For the benefit of the Capitol.

And the closer the packets drifted to the ground, the more hands reached up from the crowds, the more all Katniss could do was stand there, breathing too calm, shoulders too relaxed.

And when… 

When…

The most important warning should’ve been the moment she spotted Prim.

**The 9th Circle - Treachery**

The longer Johanna stood in front of her, silently trembling, and not just from withdrawal, the closer Katniss got to crying (even if she had long forgotten how).

But Johanna didn’t move.

So Katniss lowered her glass of water to the floor of her prison cell. “Jo, I—”

“How?” Johanna violently kicked the glass the second her name left Katniss’s mouth. Flinched as it smashed into the wall. “How? You better have a good fucking answer, Catnip.”

“I think Coin was…” Was. “Snow said—”

“Snow said?” The venom mixed with incredulity in Johanna’s voice felt like an arrow to her heart. “Snow fucking said? What the absolute fuck, Katniss?”

“We couldn’t trust her.” Katniss thought. Katniss’s instincts thought.

“And we can trust him?”

It would so much easier if she could look Johanna in her eyes. Her body had just… acted. “Please.”

“You promised, Katniss. You promised me.”

**The 8th Circle - Fraud**

“Home sweet home.”

Katniss flinched as Peeta dumped his bag onto the cold wooden floor of the District 12 victor’s house. The house that still somehow had her name attached, even as her district lay in ruins around her.

She knew that he could see her stand still, but she still flinched when his hand reached out. “Katniss, it’s okay. We’re safe. We’re home.”

She could only shake her head.

“We don’t have to worry about the Capitol. And you—”

“Don’t.” She had barely talked in prison, barely talked on the train here, but her voice was still hoarse. “Don’t tell me I did the right thing.”

“You did.”

“Stop lying to me.” After everything, she couldn’t take it. She couldn’t even lie to herself anymore.

“We found documents.” He sounded so honest. “Coin was—”

“Shut up!” Katniss turned. She had never even taken her bag off. Walked.

**The 7th Circle - Violence**

“I, uh…” Johanna scratched the stubble she had obviously stubbornly decided to keep. “Hi?”

If Johanna had decided to turn up on Katniss’s doorstep in District 12 in the middle of winter, unannounced and looking like shit, Katniss wanted to shout at her that she wasn’t welcome. Even if Katniss looked just as shit.

“You going to make me stand here forever, brainless?”

It had been… a long time since Katniss had invited anyone in. Since she had any company except the howling of the wind through the cracks in the walls and her own screams in the middle of the night. “Why are you here?”

“Guess I wanted to say something.”

“What?”

Johanna shrugged. Desperately tried not to meet Katniss’s eyes. “Don’t you have anything to say?”

“Yeah.” Something like a snort escaped Katniss’s mouth. “Yeah, Johanna, I do.”

At least she still knew how to throw a punch.

**The 6th Circle - Heresy  
**

Sometime after the blood on their faces started to dry, after they had slumped back against the hard wall next to each other, Johanna finally sighed. “They kicked me out. The fuckers kicked me out of the fucking Capitol.”

Katniss had forgotten how to laugh, but she tried anyway. “It took them this long?”

And as ugly as Johanna’s wild laugh was, it might’ve been the most beautiful sound the walls had heard in a long time. “I came here to say sorry, dumbass.”

“For what?” Of all the things Katniss had seen her do, she wasn’t sure any of were worth apologising for.

“About Coin. About everything.” Johanna let out another sigh. “Everyone’s saying you were right.”

“You don’t think so.”

“At least you don’t treat me like I’m some broken kid. But…”

“But?”

“Sometimes I miss them. The Games.” Johanna curled up on herself. “I still need them.”

**The 5th Circle - Wrath**

“And, um, that’s everything.” The Capitol representative tried not stammer on Katniss’s doorstep. “I know that, um, things with, um, Coin didn’t exactly, um, go well.”

All Katniss could do was stare at the piece of paper between her hands. At the expensive calligraphy, the flag of New Panem.

“So, um,” The representative shifted in the snow. “She left you--”

“No.” Katniss crumpled the paper in her fists. Tossed it aside. “No.”

“Um, Ms. Everdeen.” The representative scurried backwards with every step she took towards him.

“No.” Katniss unsheathed the knife she always kept on her. “Coin can—”

“Hey.” She stopped as a rough hand grabbed her arm. Pulled her back in and slammed the door. “Don’t want to do that.”

“But—”

“You don’t.” Johanna shut her eyes. Tried not to look at the snowflakes melting on her boots. “We’ve got to look out for each other.”

**The 4th Circle - Greed**

“I deserve it!”

As winter turned to spring, and snow to rain, Katniss reconsidered the unspoken agreement of cohabitation they had found themselves in. “Jo, calm down.”

“I deserve everything!” Johanna grabbed a glass off the table. Failed to catch it when it slipped out of her shaking hands. “I deserve a big house with proper heating and proper blankets and the best food and the best dresses and I deserve to kill them all!”

“Please.”

“We deserve it!”

Katniss thought that Johanna had been to forget about the morphling. That they’d be able to make it (a part of Katniss still remembered the drug). But they were never that strong. Not anymore.

“Please.” Johanna grabbed onto Katniss as the rain picked up again, pounding against the roof, against the windows, leaking, seeping in. “Please. Katniss, please.”

All Katniss could do was grab back and hang on. “We’ll make it.”

**The 3rd Circle - Gluttony**

Johanna found her in the woods, alone over the body of a deer, blood smeared over her hands.

“Hey.”

Katniss vaguely remembered the sun breaking through her screams, the dawn breaking through the windows, the walls, the shadows pressing in on her, the muffled echoes of Johanna’s sobs echoing around her.

When her stomach grumbled, Katniss remembered how to hunt.

It was something she’d always remember. The tension in the bow as she pulled back the string, the calm unawareness of her prey grazing on the moss as she aimed through the leaves, the single, small exhale of her breath as she steadied herself. The release as the arrow flew through the air.

The victory as it found its target.

The…

The blood.

“Hey, brainless, you in there?” Katniss jumped as Johnna gave her shove back towards the house. Away from the blood. “It’s my turn to make breakfast today.”

**The 2nd Circle - Lust**

“It’s summer and you’re sweaty.”

“But—”

“Come on.” Katniss put on what she hoped was a smile as she slowly eased Johanna into the bathtub. As she made sure she was turned away from the tap. “Focus on me.”

Johanna nodded, eyes clenched shut, and Katniss tried not to focus on how naked she was.

“Just focus on me.” She kept one hand firm around Johanna. Used the other to reach past her and turn on the tap. Just a small trickle.

Johanna jumped. “I—”

“Yes, you can.” Katniss brought her hand back around Johanna and held until her breathing evened slightly. “You’re the strongest person I’ve ever met.” As the water warmed. 

Johanna nodded again.

“I’m going to start now, okay?”

Johanna cracked her eyes open as Katniss wet the cloth behind her. “Katniss?”

“Yeah?”

Johanna leaned forward. Kissed her. Held on even tighter. “You’re strong too.”

**The 1st Circle - Limbo**

Sunsets had always been such a terrible thing. It was the time when the Games turned more dangerous, when they couldn’t pretend that people had died anymore. But, despite all of it, it was starting to help them sleep.

Every evening, they curl up together under the blanket (courtesy of Annie), a mug of hot chocolate (courtesy of Peeta), and they’d watch the sun fade until one of them had to carry the other to bed.

It helped.

Even if it hurt.

Even if everything barely got better.

Even as New Panem raced ahead without them, the victors of a bygone age, the rebels who were best left in the history books, the broken, shattered souls who were only just learning how to wish that it wasn’t over.

Only just.

“Johanna?”

“Hm?” Johanna stirred on her shoulder, her short yet incredibly messy hair clinging to the static of the blanket.

“Did you ever believe we’d survive?”

“Not sure if I do.”

Katniss wasn’t sure either. “Yeah.” Wasn’t sure if she’d ever be sure. “Tell me about it.” But it would have to do. It was better than nothing.


End file.
